Abstract

The name Flandrian is now used to indicate deposits of the Flandrian transgression or of the Holocene as a whole, in particular in Anglo-Saxon literature. As most geological connotations, Flandrian has changed significance and chronostratigraphic age since it was created in 1885 by RUTOT and VAN DEN BROECK. At that time, Flandrian was a pleistocene "assise" which occurred at the end of long series of quaternary and tertiary stages. Therefore, it completed and still completes the geological tradition of the cenozoic sequence. Substages of the Flandrian, as Calais and Dunkerque, are generally used, although there only exist type areas of both series instead of type localities. Work is going to define the type section in both areas of the Flemish Coastal Plain. It would be useful to re-establish the Flandrian stage on basis of these new investigations, as the last chronostratigraphic member of a continuous series in the cenozoic stratigraphical sequence.